She shakes her head.
“I don’t know how it works in your world, Nico, but in the world I live in, people don’t lie to the people they care about.”
The tears that are shining on her cheeks sparkle like shards of glass. It’s painful to watch, and I’m fighting every muscle in my body.
I want to pull her into my arms and hold her.
I want to bury my words inside her head until she understands what she means to me. How can I force her to know how I feel?
I want to tell her that I love her.
But after last night, I believe it will do nothing other than make things worse. Much worse.
We stand in painful silence for a long time. She doesn’t take her eyes off me.
Finally, I give in, unable to control myself—I step forward and grab her into a tight embrace.
She squirms and hits my chest with her fist, so I hold tighter.
She shouts at me, demanding that I let her go, but I don’t.
She swears and shouts and hits at me until she goes limp in my arms, her energy drained, her sobbing tears all that’s left.
I thread my fingers through her hair, cupping her head in my hand as I hold her against me. I kiss the top of her head and tell her over and over again, “I will make this right, Serafina. I’m not giving up on us. I’m going to prove to you that it wasn’t fake. Youknowme. Youknow who I am.”
She cries harder; her heart is shattered, and it’s my fault.
I made her fall in love with me. And then I told her the truth.
I’m a monster, and I probably don’t deserve her love. But I had it, and I want it again.
“I will fix everything,” I whisper, making her a promise.
When I finally let her go, she steps away from me without a word, without a heated glare of anger, and without hate in her eyes.
She looks numb.
I take her hand and lead her to the kitchen, sitting her down in the high chair beneath the counter.
“I’ll make us an early dinner. Do you want hot chocolate?”
She pushes away from the chair, standing up and sighing softly.
“I ate while you were out today,” she says calmly. “I’ll be in the room if you need me.”
I read straight through her words to the truth of what she’s saying.
She doesn’t want to be around me.
She can’t look at me.
She would leave the moment I opened that door and not look back.
I watch her walk away from me while I stand there fighting my own emotions, fighting my own heartache. But at the same time, I make that promise again, silent, weighing it into my soul.
I will fix this, and I will win her back, no matter what it takes.
Chapter 18 - Serafina